By Prof Upendra Baxi
The passing of Mahendra Pal Singh on March 7, 2026, marks an irreplaceable loss to India’s community of legal scholars and teachers. A towering figure in constitutional law, administrative law and comparative jurisprudence, he leaves behind a legacy that stretches across classrooms, courtrooms, and institutions of legal education in India and abroad.
Tributes have poured in from colleagues, students and jurists who remember him not only for formidable scholarship, but also for his generosity as a mentor and guide. Few teachers have influenced as many generations of lawyers and academics, or left such a deep imprint on the intellectual culture of Indian public law.
Among those who paid tribute was Justice AK Sikri, former judge of the Supreme Court and former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, who devoted an entire chapter of his book, “Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law: In a Theatre of Democracy” (2025), to Singh’s qualities “of head and heart” as a teacher and colleague. Such recognition from a distinguished judge for a former teacher is rare—yet widely regarded as fully deserved.
A SCHOLAR WHO NEVER FORGOT HIS ROOTS
Despite achieving academic prominence across continents, Singh remained deeply connected to his origins in the village of Jitholi in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district. Even as his career took him to institutions such as the University of Delhi, the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, OP Jindal Global University, and the National Law University Delhi, he carried with him the formative influences of his education at the University of Agra and the University of Lucknow.
At Lucknow, Singh encountered the celebrated constitutional law scholar VN Shukla, whose exposition of constitutional doctrine left a lasting impression. Years later, Singh would revise and revitalise Shukla’s germinal treatise on the Constitution of India, ensuring that generations of law students continued to engage with its insights.
A GLOBAL COMPARATIVE VISION
Singh’s intellectual curiosity extended far beyond national boundaries. His time at the Heidelberg University and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law deepened his engagement with German public law and comparative constitutional theory.
He developed close scholarly ties with European academics, including Dieter Conrad, whose work anticipated the “basic structure” theory that would later become central to Indian constitutional jurisprudence following the Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala decision of 1973.
Singh’s own scholarship approached such doctrines with careful intellectual restraint. While he appreciated the idea of constitutional limits on Parliament’s amending power, he remained cautious about the notion of courts possessing the “last word”. His scholarship thus embodied a preference for what some constitutional theorists describe as “weak” rather than “strong” judicial review.
TEACHER, INSTITUTION BUILDER, MENTOR
If Singh was widely respected as a scholar, he was equally admired as a teacher and institution builder.
At the University of Delhi’s Faculty of Law, where he became Professor in 1985 and later served as Dean and Head of Department, he nurtured a culture of rigorous scholarship. The university later honoured him with the title of Professor Emeritus.
From 2006 to 2011, Singh served as vice-Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata. With characteristic humour, he once remarked that the role sometimes made him feel like a “glorified headmaster”, especially when attending parent-student meetings. Yet, his tenure proved transformative.
One of his lasting contributions there was conceptualising the “NUJS Law Review” as a flagship quarterly devoted to rigorous academic research—today a respected platform for legal scholarship.
His leadership extended further. Singh chaired the Delhi Judicial Academy, served as chancellor of the Central University of Haryana, and held visiting or teaching positions at universities across the world, including the National University of Singapore, Kansai University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Renmin University of China.
A PROLIFIC SCHOLAR
Singh authored more than a hundred research papers and several influential books spanning constitutional law, comparative jurisprudence, human rights and economic freedoms.
His work, “Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History”, continues to guide students through the evolution of India’s legal system. Across his scholarship, a consistent concern with inequality and constitutional justice remained visible.
In recognition of his contributions as an educator, the All India Law Teachers’ Congress conferred upon him its Lifetime Best Teacher Award in 2009.
COMMITMENT TO SOCIAL ACCESS
Beyond scholarship, Singh was deeply invested in expanding access to legal education. He played a role in shaping Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA), an initiative that mentors students from rural and underprivileged backgrounds to enter leading law schools.
His commitment to grassroots education extended to his native village of Jitholi, where he helped establish a school that connected rural students with mentors from India’s top law universities.
For Singh, the project of legal education was never confined to elite institutions. It was about widening the circle of opportunity.
A “ROOTED COSMOPOLITAN”
Perhaps the most fitting description of Singh’s intellectual life is that of a “rooted cosmopolitan”—a phrase associated with the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Singh embodied the idea that one could remain deeply anchored in local traditions while engaging meaningfully with global scholarship. His work brought comparative law into Indian legal discourse while reminding scholars that universality must always respect cultural difference.
In that sense, his career stood for a simple yet profound proposition: that cultures matter because people matter.
FAREWELL TO A TEACHER
Generations of students, judges and scholars will remember Singh not only for his scholarship, but also for his quiet integrity and devotion to teaching.
His life reminds us that the most enduring contributions to law are not always judgments or statutes, but ideas nurtured patiently in classrooms and carried forward by students.
In the passing of a great teacher, the law itself becomes poorer—but the traditions he helped build continue to flourish.
—The writer is Emeritus Professor of Law, Warwick and Delhi University
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